Gina Rodriguez Apologizes For Singing N-Word Lyric On Instagram

Geoff Boucher
Updated

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Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez was all apologies Tuesday afternoon after an Instagram post showing her singing a lyric with the N-word sparked a social media backlash.

The offending post, which has since been deleted, showed Rodriguez in a make-up chair and passing the time by vamping and singing along to the Fugees track Ready or Not from 1996.

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The 35-year-old star addressed the hubbub with another Instagram post: “Hey, what’s up everybody. I just wanted to reach out and apologize. I am sorry. I am sorry if I offended anyone by singing along to The Fugees, to a song I love, that I grew up on. I love Lauryn Hill, and I really am sorry if I offended you.”

That’s “sorry” times three plus an extra “apologize” all in a single post but the multiple mea culpas didn’t sway critics of the actress who framed the casual sing-song moment as part of a pattern. Many of the critical responses noted that Rodriguez has been in the spotlight before for her comments regarding race.

Rodriguez has taken heat for past comments regarding race. In a 2018 Net-a-Porter roundtable, for instance, the actress offered a hierarchy of pay gaps that was criticized in some corners as polarizing or clumsy.

“I get so petrified in this space talking about equal pay, especially when you look at the intersectional aspect of it,” Rodriguez said during the talk. “Where white women get paid more than black women, and black women get paid more than Asian women, Asian women get paid more than Latina women, and it’s like a very scary space to step into.”

The actress addressed that incident and her intentions in a tearful interview on the Sway in the Morning radio show, which broadcasts on Eminem’s Shade 45 channel on SiriusXM and is based in Rodriguez’s hometown of Chicago.

“The backlash was devastating to say the least,” Rodriguez said during the January broadcast. “The black community was the only community I looked to growing up. We didn’t have that many Latino shows, so the black community made me feel like I was seen. So to get [called] ‘anti-black’ is saying that I’m ‘anti-family.’”

Rodriguez’s Golden Globe-winning portrayal of Jane Villanueva on Jane the Virgin came to an end this past summer when the show’s 100th and final episode aired on the CW. The show was nominated for two Emmys and four Golden Globes, including the one Rodriguez won in 2015 for best actress in a television series musical or comedy.

Rodriguez’s I Can and I Will production company secured a 10-episode, straight-to-series order for Diary of a Female President from writer Ilana Peña (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend). Announced in January, the endeavor has Rodriguez and Peña set to executive produce with I Can and I Will’s Emily Gipson.

The Chicago native is next set to star as the title character in Netflix’s live-action feature Carmen Sandiego, for which the Internet TV network acquired the feature film rights.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was also in the spotlight this week for using the N-word during a live radio interview with WAMC in New York. The politician used the term while describing historical racism aimed at Italian-Americans, a context that has some semantic similarities to Rodriguez’s roundtable references to pay inequity.

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